Data traffic in mobile telecommunication networks has been rapidly growing in recent years. Radio resource insufficiency is not only a problem on a front end but also on a back-end core network. On the traditional 3G telecommunication network, all data traffic enters the core network and increases the loading thereon.
Hence, traffic offload is an issue that the current mobile telecommunication network operators are facing to. The so-called traffic offload refers to routing data locally as possible to prevent the data from transmitting to the core network, and thus the loading on the core network may be reduced.
There exist two conventional solutions for resources insufficiency on mobile telecommunication systems due to a significant increment on data traffic. The first solution to solve the radio resource insufficiency is to establish small cell networks with low power so as to enhance a re-use rate of spectrum and data traffic offloading ability on a unit area. The second solution to solve resource insufficiency on the back-end core network is a local Internet protocol access (LIPA) plan and a selected Internet protocol traffic offload (SIPTO) plan set by the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) for Intranet and Internet respectively.
No matter whether the future mobile telecommunication network adapts a new generation of the long term evolution (LTE) technology or the LTE-Advanced technology, the system architectures thereof both use Internet protocols to be their transmission standard.
Peer-to-peer transmission such as speech or video transmission, a shared white board, file transfer, and instant messaging is a commonly used service type in telecommunication. Data traffic of peer-to-peer service transmission is quite large and is considered as a significant loading with respect to the core network. Therefore, if the data traffic of peer-to-peer services is able to be offloaded, not only the loading of the core network may be reduced, but also user satisfaction of the mobile network user may be enhanced. However, 3GPP has not yet provided any solution specific to peer-to-peer data traffic.